Brewing Safety... bumped carboy leads to surgery

Andy from Midwest just bumped his carboy on the counter.

Brewing Safety

Hate to hear of anyone getting injured from this hobby, except perhaps for the people that think its completely safe to modify their burners by jacking them up with pvc or conduit pipe.

That's it, I'm getting a brew hauler, unless someone can tell me where to get a milk crate.

For my current batch, I carried the carboy from outside, down the stairs and into the basement. Basement got too cold so I carried it up into the den. SWMBO didn't approve, so I carried it into the closet. I've been pushing my luck.

Buckets, baby.

Once again, if I was worried about my health, I wouldn't be drinking beer in the first place. Just sayin.

Mine is in a milk crate most of the time. While fermenting in the fridge too.

Its gonna be dangerous regardless Even plastic bucket handles break lose or plastic carboy slips and if land on foot THAT SOB GONNA HURT! I agree though id take plastic over glass anyday from a safety point of veiw Have to be careful and i hope he gets well soon!

Wear steel toe boots and make sure ya have a great grip! Im accident prone so i have to double up on everything! Theres no rush accidents happen when you get in hurry saving 5 seconds and get injured isnt worth it

+1 on the plastic buckets. The risk of injury is just a lot less. That, to me, outweighs any advantage glass carboys might have over plastic.

I feel bad for the kid, and hope he fully recovers.

sroberts said:

That's it, I'm getting a brew hauler, unless someone can tell me where to get a milk crate.

For my current batch, I carried the carboy from outside, down the stairs and into the basement. Basement got too cold so I carried it up into the den. SWMBO didn't approve, so I carried it into the closet. I've been pushing my luck.

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I just got mine and it is like night and day carrying that thing around. I was always worried about the throat or the carboy snapping off trying to use the carboy handles they make. I plan on leaving the brew hauler on when cleaning also, when it gets really slippery.

I accidently knocked over an empty 6-gal glass carboy, and man, that thing exploded. I sold all of the rest of my glass ones and replaced them with the 5- and 6-gal plastic carboys that morebeer sells. Love them. Just not worth the risk with my 5-year-old son in the house.

The thing I don't like about the plastic carboys is how they can flex and draw in liquid from the airlock so I went to Walmart and bought 6 milk crates for ~$20.

I'm in the same boat. I started with glass, but didn't like the extra weight and the risk of breakage. Switched to better bottles and never looked back.

I still have my glass though. I'm going to start doing sours soon, and think I'll have to go back to glass for the extended aging I'll need with the sours. Not looking forward to using glass again to be honest.

Here's the picture from the email I recieved. Didn't look good to me. It really makes you think.

You'll never see that happen with stainless [sanke] fermenters (breaking and needing surgery to repair hand)... If you drop ANY full fermenter on your foot, it's going to hurt. At least with sanke fermenters, there's no risk of the handle(s) breaking on you. They also have two handles built to make it even easier. Plus, the handles are thick enough to not dig into your hands when you're carrying a full fermenter around.

I love my glass carboys but every time I hear a horror story it makes me wonder. I do have brew haulers on both of mine though and I can't praise them enough. I love 'em. The only thing to watch is that they are properly aligned before you grab the handles and go but generally once you get them in place they stay there. Mine only come off as the last part of cleaning then the carboy goes upside down on one of those stand things and it gets put right back on.

I only move them full once... they get filled with wort (gravity feed) then right there they get measured, oxygenated and the yeast is pitched. Then I pick them up and they go about twenty feet then up and over into a chest freezer ferm chamber. I wouldn't dream of doing that move without the brew hauler. With it I am comfortable though as they are stable and even if I did hit something by accident and shatter it it is hanging below my hands and away from my body. At most I would get wet and pissed but not cut up.

After fermentation I use very low CO2 to push the beer into a keg. If by some crazy fluke the thing exploded from the CO2 (can't see it as the hose would pop loose long before that) it would be completely enclosed in the chest freezer. Again a huge mess but relatively safe injury wise.

I've thought about it and minimzed the risks but even then a huge glass bottle does kind of scare me. The only thing is I am a big fan of stainless/glass and not a big fan of plastics/synthetics or any type which is the main reason I haven't tried a bucket yet.

Just bought a brewhauler last week and it came in the mail today! Thank goodness.

Would the brew Hauler work on a 3 gallon glass carboy?

I've never handled a 3 gallon carboy. Just thinking out loud though I would think it would be too small to fit in the brew hauler. I mean the belt is adjustable but the sling part isn't.

Is a 3 gallon carboy short and squat or tall and thin? If it is as tall as a 6 gal then maybe it would work. If it was short though the sling would be too deep for it to sit securely in it I would think.

The 3 gallon looks like a 6 gallon just shrunk (shrank?) proportionally. Looking at the pictures from the OP, I was thinking along the same lines that it might slip through. The 3 gallon, of course, isn't so heavy but glass does get kinda slippery. I'll have to remove my carb handle from my 6 gallon and see if it would fit the three (I think probably not). In the mean time, I'll just be a little more careful after seeing with pic of Andy.

Had never worried about anything with a glass carboy except dumping in liquid that was too warm for it. I probably should though. I'm an idiot, so I lug mine all over the house for little to no reason. I have it in a milk crate, but I take it out to wash it in the tub, etc...

Incidentally, I'm in the process of losing a toenail because I dropped an empty plastic pail on it. Go figure.

Ironically, I don't think any of the Brewing Safety products that MidWest had on that page would have prevented Andy's accident.

The two glass carboys that came with my original kit now sit gathering dust on the back of a basement table. I used one about a year and a half ago to bulk age a barleywine. That's it- right now, I'm fermenting a batch of apfelwein, but it's in a Better Bottle. It's just not worth it to mess around with glass, when there are better options available.

LTownLiquorPig said:

Had never worried about anything with a glass carboy except dumping in liquid that was too warm for it. I probably should though. I'm an idiot, so I lug mine all over the house for little to no reason. I have it in a milk crate, but I take it out to wash it in the tub, etc...

Incidentally, I'm in the process of losing a toenail because I dropped an empty plastic pail on it. Go figure.

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That's why I use glass carboys.

pabloj13 said:

That's why I use glass carboys.

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Yeah, if it was a carboy instead of a pail, you wouldn't have to worry about the toenail, since you'd probably not have a toe anymore!

broadbill said:

Ironically, I don't think any of the Brewing Safety products that MidWest had on that page would have prevented Andy's accident.

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Think duct taping a Carboy would make it a bit safer? I'm thinking four horizontal and three vertical lines of tape. I have six glass fermentors and will likely continue using them for a while.

I like to watch.

JimTheHick said:

Think duct taping a Carboy would make it a bit safer? I'm thinking four horizontal and three vertical lines of tape. I have six glass fermentors and will likely continue using them for a while.

I like to watch.

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Possibly, I know that gallon bottles of laboratory-grade acid come in plastic coated bottles. The idea is if it comes crashing to the ground it will stay semi-contained for cleanup, and also to prevent splatter.

JimTheHick said:

Think duct taping a Carboy would make it a bit safer? I'm thinking four horizontal and three vertical lines of tape. I have six glass fermentors and will likely continue using them for a while.

I like to watch.

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This sounds like a great idea. I am thinking about taping mine up with gorilla brand duct tape. I'm sure it would at least help a little. Maybe someone wants to do a test? I certainly can't afford breaking my glass carboy, but if someone has a partially broken one or something?

This story really does get me concerned.

Golddiggie said:

You'll never see that happen with stainless [sanke] fermenters (breaking and needing surgery to repair hand)... If you drop ANY full fermenter on your foot, it's going to hurt. At least with sanke fermenters, there's no risk of the handle(s) breaking on you. They also have two handles built to make it even easier. Plus, the handles are thick enough to not dig into your hands when you're carrying a full fermenter around.

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It amazes me how so many people ignored Golddiggie's post about Sanke kegs as fermenters.

They are the best thing since sliced bread.

I use the 1/4 barrel(7.75 gallon) Sankes for five gallon batches.

Easy to clean, hard to scratch, unbreakable!